Urine Testing for Opioid Addiction

Guest: Sarah Bagley, MD, Internist at the Boston Medical Center and a professor of medicine and pediatrics at Boston University. It’s usually standard procedure for people receiving treatment for opioid addiction to be asked to take a urine drug test regularly – especially early on in treatment. But it’s a bit controversial because there’s a kind of “I want to help you overcome this, but I don’t trust you to tell me the truth” feel to it – and trust is crucial in the relationship between a patient and therapist. So, are urine drug tests really necessary to treatment of opioid use disorder?